The Vortex Blaster | Page 9

just so they didn't light in the crater or
near the observatory, and he had already made certain of that. Then,
without waiting even to finish the whirl or to straighten her out in level
flight, Cloud's still-flying hand darted toward the switch whose closing
would energize the Bergenholm and make the flitter inertialess.
Too late. Hell was out for noon, with the little speedster still inert.
Cloud had moved fast, too; trained mind and trained body had been
working at top speed and in perfect coordination. There just simply
hadn't been enough time. If he could have got what he wanted, ten full
seconds, or even nine, he could have made it, but....
* * * * *
In spite of what happened, Cloud defended his action, then and
thereafter. Damnitall, he had to take the eight-point-three second
reading! Another tenth of a second and his bomb wouldn't have
fitted--he didn't have the five percent leeway he wanted, remember.
And no, he couldn't wait for another match, either. His screens were
leaking like sieves, and if he had waited for another chance they would
have picked him up fried to a greasy cinder in his own lard!
The bomb sped truly and struck the target in direct central impact,
exactly as scheduled. It penetrated perfectly. The neocarballoy casing
lasted just long enough--that frightful charge of duodec exploded, if not
exactly at the center of the vortex, at least near enough to the center to
do the work. In other words, Cloud's figuring had been close--very
close. But the time had been altogether too short.
The flitter was not even out of the crater when the bomb went off. And
not only the bomb. For Cloud's vague forebodings were materialized,
and more; the staggeringly immense energy of the vortex merged with
that of the detonating duodec to form an utterly incomprehensible
whole.

In part the hellish flood of boiling lava in that devil's cauldron was
beaten downward into a bowl by the sheer, stupendous force of the
blow; in part it was hurled abroad in masses, in gouts and streamers.
And the raging wind of the explosion's front seized the fragments and
tore and worried them to bits, hurling them still faster along their paths
of violence. And air, so densely compressed as to be to all intents and
purposes a solid, smote the walls of the crater. Smote them so that they
crumbled, crushed outward through the hard-packed ground, broke up
into jaggedly irregular blocks which hurtled, screamingly, away
through the atmosphere.
Also the concussion wave, or the explosion front, or flying fragments,
or something, struck the two loose bombs, so that they too exploded
and added their contribution to the already stupendous concentration of
force. They were not close enough to the flitter to wreck it of
themselves, but they were close enough so that they didn't do her--or
her pilot--a bit of good.
The first terrific wave buffeted the flyer while Cloud's right hand was
in the air, shooting across the panel to turn on the Berg. The impact
jerked the arm downward and sidewise, both bones of the forearm
snapping as it struck the ledge. The second one, an instant later, broke
his left leg. Then the debris began to arrive.
Chunks of solid or semi-molten rock slammed against the hull,
knocking off wings and control-surfaces. Gobs of viscous slag slapped
it liquidly, freezing into and clogging up jets and orifices. The little
ship was hurled hither and yon, in the grip of forces she could no more
resist than can the floating leaf resist the waters of a cataract. And
Cloud's brain was as addled as an egg by the vicious concussions which
were hitting him from so many different directions and so nearly all at
once. Nevertheless, with his one arm and his one leg and the few cells
of his brain that were still at work, the physicist was still in the fight.
By sheer force of will and nerve he forced his left hand across the
gyrating key-bank to the Bergenholm switch. He snapped it, and in the
instant of its closing a vast, calm peace descended, blanket-like. For,
fortunately, the Berg still worked; the flitter and all her contents and

appurtenances were inertialess. Nothing material could buffet her or
hurt her now; she would waft effortlessly away from a feather's lightest
possible touch.
Cloud wanted to faint then, but he didn't--quite. Instead, foggily, he
tried to look back at the crater. Nine-tenths of his visiplates were out of
commission, but he finally got a view. Good--it was out. He wasn't
surprised; he had been quite confident that it would be. It wasn't
scattered around, either. It couldn't be, for his only possibility of
smearing the shot was on the upper side, not the